TechMeme Gives Up On Fully Automated News — 3+ year old TechMeme, an automated news site that shows breaking news clustered by topic, has always generated “headlines” by analyzing how news sites link to each other. If a lot of sites start linking to something unique, TechMeme guesses it's news.

News aggregator Techmeme melds algorithms and humans — News aggregator Techmeme is perhaps the fastest way to find interesting tech news - it takes minutes to find and link to breaking stories, as opposed to the hours or days that rivals like Digg or Google News take.

Why Twitter Didn't Sell to Facebook — Really — The New York Times' Claire Miller attended a Churchill Club function to fete Twitter co-founder Evan Williams last night. In an onstage interview, Williams talked about many different aspects of his micro-blogging service, which now has 6 million subscribers.

Apple's iPod Problem — With fewer iPod users upgrading, the days of explosive growth are over. And that leaves iPhones and Macs picking up the slack — William Thomas Cain/Getty Images — Chris Wysopal is the head of a four-iPod family. His wife and two kids all carry …

Hogan's Litvack Discusses Google/Yahoo — Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. called off their joint advertising agreement just three hours before the Department of Justice planned to file antitrust charges to block the pact, according to the lawyer who would have been lead counsel for the government.

Barack Obama Uses a Zune — After all of the misinformation and dirty lies spread about Obama over the course of the presidential campaign, this is the most shocking I've heard about him: He uses a Zune. This can't be possible. — Why? Because, as has been widely reported, Obama, many of his staffers and Joe Biden use a Mac.

DNS Problems Hit Yahoo — Updated: Yahoo, one of the largest web sites on the planet, is being plagued by series of problems related to Domain Name System (DNS). A test using Gomez's testing service shows error messages in certain cities such as Chicago. Others are experiencing slower access …

Greystripe Brings Flash to the iPhone, Sort Of — Adobe may be hard at work creating a version of its Flash Player that works on the iPhone, but until Apple gives its OK, iPhone users must muddle along without viewing most online video content. — Except that on Monday …

The High-Res Society — For nearly all of history the success of a society was proportionate to its ability to assemble large and disciplined organizations. Those who bet on economies of scale generally won, which meant the largest organizations were the most successful ones.

Debut of new Windows Live hits a snag — The debut of the new Windows Live, which introduces a set of social networking-like features to Microsoft's suite of online services, has not gone exactly as planned. — On the Windows Live team blog this afternoon, the team writes that some users have had trouble accessing the services:

What's causing video glitches at Apple, Netflix? — Some Apple TV owners have complained for several weeks that it takes much longer now to download and playback high-definition movies. — “I started downloading an hour back and it says it will take two hours,” wrote someone with the user name Reachg.

Chinese Authorities Enforce Switch from Microsoft — Internet cafes in China are forced to switch to a Chinese-made operating system, with steep licensing fees. … HONG KONG—Authorities in the southeastern Chinese city of Nanchang are requiring all local Internet cafes to replace …

Worm uses familiar brands to lure people — Ho-ho-ho. This isn't an offer for a real coupon book from McDonald's. It's a new mass-mailing e-mail worm. — On Tuesday security vendor WebSense issued an alert warning that holiday coupon e-mails from familiar companies may be malicious code in disguise …

Amazon.com Invades the Apple App Store — Amazon.com will join the iPhone frenzy on Wednesday with a new application available free for download through Apple's App Store. — The software is relatively straightforward, offering a way for iPhone or iPod Touch owners to browse through …